Under the agreement, the Clinic and Akron Children’s will align their pediatric and adult congenital heart surgery programs and their adult congenital cardiology services. Leadership teams from both hospital systems say the collaboration will strengthen research and quality initiatives, improve operational efficiencies and elevate medical education and physician recruitment, according to a news release.

The combined case volume is expected to position the collaboration as one of the largest programs in the Midwest.

“Our meetings have been very collegial. You can write about collaboration in a contract but it takes on real meaning in the day-to-day work you do in the care of patients,” said Dr. Philip Smith, clinical director of Akron Children’s heart center, in a statement. “We enjoy discussing challenging cases and having an expanded ‘brain trust’ to share ideas and best practices.”

The teams are working together to standardize care and ultimately lead to the submission of a single set of outcomes data to the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Clinic and Akron Children’s surgeons also have been granted privileges and performed surgeries at each other’s hospitals.

In addition to Smith, the surgeons involved in the arrangement are Drs. Michael Spector and Peter Kouretas of Akron Children’s and Drs. Gosta Pettersson and Robert Stewart of the Clinic. Kouretas, a prized recruit who joined Akron Children’s on Feb. 23, most recently served as chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at the competing University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital.

“The combining of the Akron Children’s program and Cleveland Clinic program, together with the hiring of new chiefs of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery and Cardiology offers great opportunity in synergy and better care of children in northeast Ohio,” said Dr. Lars Svensson, chairman of the Clinic’s Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute, in a statement.

Congenital heart disease is a type of defect in one or more structures of the heart or blood vessels. It occurs in 8 to 10 people out of every 1,000 births. Last year, the Clinic performed 160 surgical procedures to repair congenital heart defects in children and another 500 in adult patients. Akron Children’s performed 150 cardiac surgical procedures on children last year.